This isn't a dream. This is what people have done for ages. To pretend that this cannot happen again is to ignore the lessens of history. If you think these young people are creating something new that will last in perpetuity, you're grossly mistaken. They are only creating a bad future for themselves, which someday will be corrected.
I don't expect them to smarten up. That's the real crime. But, these things go in phases. I'm just pointing out the error, but I really don't expect the youth to change.
They won't. Anyway, I really don't see the problem.. marriage is not exactly sacred anymore you know.
And for you "ages" is probably what, 5,000 years at the most? ...If you only count the Hebrews? A mere fraction of the existance of humans. If half of all marriages end in divorce, can you really blame young people for being reluctant?
The problem is marriage should be sacred - at least in a secular sense. Just because people are currently living a certain way does not mean that way of living can't be improved. You seem to connect current behavior with acceptable behavior. Since when is current behavior considered the best behavior? You seem to be under the mirage that everything modern is good. Well, that's just about never correct, except for technology. Are you applying you inate feelings about technology to societal behavior?
People marry for love now, this is a fairly recent invention. Perhaps most marriages in the past were ones of convenience.
Marrying for love is not new. King David married another man's wife for "love". Past marriages for convenience only is an example of where the balance in marriage went too far the other way, i.e. away from sex and heavily toward security.
And marriage sucked in the past. Husbands could rape their wives and it could not be considered rape. Women were often forced into marriages they did not want and forced to bear children they did not want, or want then or want with that man. People suffered in marriages even though both would have been happier elsewhere. Women were considered men's property in marriages for many centuries. It's not like things were good and then the 60s came along. There have been problems all along. Now at least there is greater balance between the sexes and we are all trying to figure out what we want. It may take some time for all the baggage to dissipate from the religious and secular government control of love we are just in the middle of shaking off.
It's mostly not the women choosing to live unmarried lives. It's the men. Got little to do with feminine empowerment. The ghetto lifestyle that is coming into vogue for the middle classes did not start with empowered welfare moms.
Heh you've got me all wrong.. It's just that you cannot push a thing like marriage on people. People are gonna do what they are gonna do, it's a free country no ? Quit being so moralizing and projecting your religious morals on everybody.
I think the new attitudes of the young people is a new up and coming societal change. It does not mean that their lives will be miserable because they do not the same moral standards as their parents or grandparents it just means their lives will be different. I used to be against people living together without being married, but then I got a reality check and realized marriage is not always an option. Like in my daughters case.
This is not moralizing. This is common sense. The slowing of population growth in Western countries as a result of the breakdown of family values will hurt our future prosperity. You can be an atheists - and still understand bad policy when you see it.
Living together without marriage or living apart as sexual partners with perhaps kids is not new. The ghetto has been doing this for years. What is new is the spread of ghetto behaviors to the middle and upper classes.
Is this particular common sense restricted to you only ? I know one thing for sure.. overpopulation is not going to help our prosperity. And why has everything to be about atheist vs. theist with you ? :bugeye:
I am not talking about overpopulation. I am talking about receding populations. What does atheism have to do with people shacking up anyway?
